No way to steady your camera for a shot? You could increase the ISO or shutter speed, or brace yourself against a tree or wall, and the image might look sharp, but even subtle lens movement can blur edge details. Finally, Photoshop has a reliable way to address this problem! Photoshop educator Dan Moughamian shows how the new Shake Reduction filter in Photoshop CC can help you reclaim some of those blurred pixels.

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Scenarios for Using Shake Reduction

Shake Reduction is new in Photoshop CC, and it marks the first time we have a tool built specifically to reduce blurs caused by camera shake. Photography tricks we've used in the past included using the Motion Blur features in other filters (such as Smart Sharpen), but the results were often sub-par.

But what if the camera is steady and the subject isn't? What if you're photographing small details close up or zoomed in, and the subject moves slightly—can Shake Reduction deal with that problem? Without splitting too many hairs, the answer is yes, sometimes Shake Reduction can sharpen image details blurred by motion rather than by camera shake. The key is to help the filter avoid analyzing the areas that were actually moving in the scene.

NOTE

This filter is not a substitute for good focusing practices; it can't make a badly blurred image sharp (not yet, anyway).

For real camera-shake situations, Shake Reduction can usually remove most of the blurring with a single pass. When necessary, you can even apply separate corrections (in a single Shake Reduction session) to different parts of the picture.

Figure 1 shows a portion of the test shot for this article. This photo was taken with a tripod at telephoto distance, but because the tripod was in a fast-moving part of the creek, the camera sensor was jarred just enough during long exposures to create a blur, as we'll see in the next section.

Figure 1 Shake Reduction in Photoshop CC is a great way to improve handheld photos that aren't quite tack-sharp.